Last week, the National Council of State endorsed the forthcoming national conference proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan. It is not surprising that the body has endorsed what many patriotic and critically-minded Nigerians have dubbed a jamboree or pro-government gathering that will gulp a whopping N7 billion of tax payers’ money. If the Nigerian people really matter and their views taken into account, they would vote that such money should be shared to them to alleviate their daily grueling struggle for a living!
President Jonathan’s planned national conference by the composition of the delegates and the leadership of the latter is not in any way a national conference in the mould of similar efforts in other climes, or envisaged by its advocates in Nigeria as a gathering of the ethnic groups and nationalities that make up Nigeria which was created by the British colonialists in 1914. In fact, Jonathan’s national conference is dead on arrival as it will likely go the way of similar half-hearted and teleguided efforts of the past!
First, government has not explained why it has to appoint the chairman, deputy chairman and secretary of the conference! In a gathering of nationalities that make up a distressed nation which genuinely seek solutions to the problem of co-existence through open and frank dialogue, the delegates should have been allowed to elect its chairman, deputy and secretary.
This could be done in the first three days following inauguration of the conference. By appropriating the power to appoint these key persons, government is making it known that the conference is its baby that has to be guided. Corollary to the above is the inconsistency so far displayed by the government about the agenda of the conference. The government in the beginning won public support by declaring that the conference will not have ‘no go areas’, only for it to turn round that secession or discussion of it would not be allowed!
While no Nigerian would vote for secession, the government would have shown that it is just bringing Nigerians together to look at all aspects of their union by allowing all issues to be discussed to know the position of all its people on all issues bordering on their living together as Nigerians. The Constitution of the Ethiopian Federation has provision for secession of any part of that old nation that wishes to secede, but no part of Ethiopia has taken advantage of it. The implication is that the Ethiopian nation is more mature, free and representative of the wishes and aspirations of its people.
Third, government would appoint majority of the delegates! The federal government will select elder statesmen from the 36 states and Abuja; 18 retired military, police and security personnel to be picked by stakeholders. The question is who are these stakeholders, who are familiar with retired top security and military officers? Again, the composition chart provides that the federal government shall select 20 delegates, six of whom shall be women.
And to make a mockery of those who clamoured for a conference of ethnic nationalities, the Jonathan government allocated a mere 90 delegates out of the total 492 delegates who will attend the conference to ethnic nationalities at the rate of 15 delegates per geo-political zone! In addition to professional groups, women, youth, the physically challenged, academia and pro-government groups like organised private sector, etc.; it is clear that the government is organising a pro-government national dialogue which at the end, would leave those amalgamated by the British in 1914, still hungry for a discussion about their collective future.
